Starlight Explosion
by Birdboy
Summary: "From the moment Piyomon asked her if she could join in the fight, Takenouchi Sora had a feeling in her heart that if she allowed her to join, something would go terribly wrong." A sacrifice in battle leaves Sora distraught and searching desperately for a way to resurrect her partner.


From the moment Piyomon asked her if she could join in the fight, Takenouchi Sora had a feeling in her heart that if she allowed her to join, something would go terribly wrong. But WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon had been beaten, and she hadn't been in a fight this tough since she was 11, new to the digital world, and trying desperately to protect her partner from Vamdemon. And if Boltmon wasn't stopped, it would destroy Odaiba, her family, the other Chosen Children, and everything else she loved.

Besides, she was a Chosen Child. Her purpose was to give her partner digimon the power to evolve. If she rejected that duty out of fear of her digimon being harmed, they would have never been able to save anything, and both worlds would've been doomed five years ago, after Piyomon failed to evolve to Garudamon and rescue them from their first meeting with Vamdemon.

"Piyomon, warp evolve! Hououmon!"

Her golden bird digimon shined with a brilliance and warmth Sora would not soon forget, a beauty matched only by the ugliness of Boltmon's green skin. With a "Crimson Flare!" she opened her mouth wide, and a jet of scorching fire shot from the sky towards the street to engulf Boltmon, a few abandoned cars, and most of the pavement. Vehicles and concrete alike were annihilated in Hououmon's unearthly fire, but the flames did not burn hot enough to do more than singe the many nails and spikes which dotted her humanoid foe's body; no pain was visible on the rest of its reanimated cyborg form.

"Tomahawk Steiner!" Boltmon lifted its colossal metal axe and hurled it towards the golden bird. The streets were simply too narrow to serve as a proper arena for a battle between Ultimate digimon, and the apartments of Odaiba too tall for Sora's partner to dodge; the axe connected with Hououmon's bottom left wing and sent it crashing out of the sky. As it plummeted, Boltmon raced across the road to grab the falling Hououmon by the neck, catching it right below the rainbow feathers which Sora had briefly mistaken for a Leomon's mane.

"I don't think there's any other way to stop him," Hououmon said somberly, then turned to her beak to her partner, as if asking her for permission.

Sora nodded sorrowfully, unable to reject her digimon's logic. She didn't know exactly what Hououmon had planned, but on some level she had already prepared for the consequences, no matter how many times she would later wish she had done otherwise.

"Starlight Explosion!"

Hououmon met Boltmon's grip by wrapping her four golden wings around its green body, and her wings soon radiated a light brighter than the sun. The fiery burst engulfed both of the grappling combatants and momentarily made the midwinter day feel warmer than a volcano guarded by a rampaging Meramon. And then the light faded, leaving only a floating mass of green and black data, and a pile of ash-blackened feathers arranged in a pile with a roughly ovoid shape.

Tears filling her eyes, Sora raced to gather the pile of feathers, which she cradled with all the care of a smashed digitama and gently carried home. It was only when she set the only remnant of Piyomon down on her desk that she would ask herself if she had become delusional in her grief.

* * *

"If it helps, we'd all be dead without her. Piyomon saved all our lives."

Sora couldn't deny the truth of Taichi's words – Boltmon's rampage had taken plenty of human and digimon lives before it even reached the chosen children. And yet something about them lacked the power to let her smile again.

"It doesn't help," Sora looked puzzled for a moment – she had thought that, certainly, but she was sure she hadn't _said_ anything so blunt – until she realized the voice was not her own, and was coming from Takeru's direction. "Sorry. I know what it's like."

"And at least I hatched almost right away!" Patamon probably didn't mean his words to sound like a barb or a taunt, but a glance from Sora made it clear he wasn't cheering her up. "Sorry. I miss Piyomon too; I always looked up to her."

"The partner digimon of chosen children have typically reincarnated quickly," Koushirou said. "Patamon's egg hatched within hours, and although Wormmon's took days, this can probably be attributed to its separation from Ken; it did hatch the moment he found it."

"But Piyomon didn't leave a digitama," Sora said.

"And this battle was in the real world, so who knows what rules apply?" Yamato asked, then upon a quick glance at Sora's distraught face, added a quick "sorry."

The conversation turned back to Boltmon for a while; their foe had been defeated, but whatever caused an Ultimate-level digimon to rampage through File Island and Odaiba was still unknown, and many suspected their trouble was not over. "What am I even doing here." Sora said blankly, after a few minutes of fruitless speculation. "It's not like I can help you."

"You're one of us, and Chosen Children stay together," Takeru answered, and that was the first time since Piyomon's death that Sora had cracked even a momentary smile. "I know how hard it is, and at least Patamon's back. Hang in there."

* * *

Takenouchi Haruhiko had never been around much, as a result of his job in Kyoto, and in the week after Piyomon died he seemed more distant than ever. He had offered condolences when he heard, but didn't have time to be there for his daughter; a big research project had come up the very next day, and he was off to Lake Ogura in Kyoto prefecture to study and writing colleagues around the world with questions.

Toshiko had been home, but hadn't been able to cheer Sora up, despite her best efforts. Piyomon had done a great deal to repair Sora's relationship with her mother, but having someone to grieve with did not diminish the reality of death. Sora had considered her mother's suggestion of a Buddhist funeral for her partner, but something about it seemed off for what was, after all, an otherworldly creature. Or perhaps that was just an excuse, and Sora only rejected a funeral because she still did not wish to face the reality of her partner's death. Then again, her father, who _did_ know a thing or two about otherworldly creatures, had been extremely evasive when she called and asked about the proper way to pay tribute to dead spirits.

Sora had long thought that her father didn't care that much about her – let alone about her digimon - and that his work came before his family; the past week had only seemed to confirm it. And the fact that his first words when he finally came home were about Piyomon shocked Sora a good deal, and would have done so even more were it not for the actual content of his sentence.

"Piyomon will surely rise again, but I'm still trying to figure out when… and how."

Sora's jaw dropped at her father's words, but she remained speechless, unsure how to react to the revelation. But the old professor was used to speaking without a response – he had certainly lectured enough – and elaboration simply came naturally to him.

"Birds like Piyomon's evolutionary line have long been associated with eternity. Hououmon takes its name from the Houou, an undying, rainbow immortal bird said to herald a new age. But it evolves from a digimon which takes its name from the Garuda, who was granted immortality by Vishnu. And it's long been associated with the Greek Phoenix – a bird which builds a nest, perishes in its own flames, and rises from its own ashes. If I saw what I think I did during the fight, then Hououmon died as the result of its own fire attack."

"But she didn't build a nest."

"And I don't believe Piyomon lived for hundreds of years, which is one of the things I've been investigating. Did it leave behind ashes, or anything of the sort?"

"There were charred feathers. I kept them, because it was all I had left of her. Normally when a digimon dies it either forms an egg or disintegrates into data."

"I think those feathers will be the source of Piyomon's resurrection. But you probably need to bring them to a certain location, first." Her father spoke on, describing the various places in Japan he had traveled to and various phoenix myths, and went on to list sites as far as Greece and India – but Sora's thoughts were elsewhere.

After all, there was only one place associated with the resurrection of digimon – whether a phoenix or otherwise – and it wasn't located in the human world.

* * *

The Village of Beginnings had long been a target for the digital world's demons, tyrants, and other assorted villains – at least, those who were secure in their own dominance - for the reality of rebirth gave digimon the world over a self-assurance which granted them the courage to risk death in battle. Devimon had tried to sack it, the Dark Masters had destroyed it, and Deathmon was now following in their footsteps.

Deathmon had already resurrected a Meramon, evolved it to Boltmon, and driven it insane; the monster he resurrected was the one who crossed through the digital gate to rampage around Odaiba. But winning that one battle (at the cost of Hououmon's life) was not enough to save the digital world; one battle never was.

Sora fell to her knees and muttered a repeated "no" when she saw what the Village of Beginnings had become – full of smashed digitamas, and none left to hatch. Elecmon had himself rubbed and hatched all the remaining eggs and, at least for the time being, forbidden the creation of more. "It's better than letting Deathmon kill them minutes after birth. I'll restore this place once he leaves."

"You mean he's here?"

That there would be a fight soon after arriving in the digital world was an inevitability, and yet Sora didn't know what to do but watch helplessly. Normally, she'd focus on Birdramon or Garudamon, take pride in her partner's victories, and spend her time cheering it on. Now she scanned the whole field with a mix of guilt and horror, watching digimon too weak to defeat Boltmon – digimon which fought on for her own sake, and for Piyomon's – fail to land decent attacks even with the advantage of numbers.

One by one, the other Chosen Children's digimon fell, and with each new blow Sora regretted bringing Piyomon's ashes here all the more. Maybe there was another way to revive her, maybe her father was mistaken about the whole phoenix thing. And it was certainly better to accept that her digimon had died than sacrifice seven more in a doomed effort to bring it back – they needed Hououmon here, alive and fighting, if they were to have any hope of winning this thing. Sora had forgotten in this moment that the fate of the digital world might also rest in their hands, for it had become hard to care about the world which had given her so many adventures (and a wonderful partner) when it had also stolen away Piyomon.

As Holy Angemon fell to an "Explosion Eye!" and devolved into Tokomon, Sora saw only one option before her.

"I'm sorry, everyone! Retreaaaaaaaaaaat!"

It was then that the ashen ball of feathers she had brought with her was bathed in a golden light. They merged together and began to shift in shape – first to a seed, then a small plant, then to a chick in which Sora recognized Piyomon's silhouette, and so forth through her partner's other forms until Hououmon returned alive.

"Be careful! Don't ever do that to me again. I missed you so much!" Sora shouted, immensely grateful that she had returned; she wanted to throw her arms around her digimon, but it was too big in this form for them to fit, and getting too close to a battle with Deathmon could leave her partner the one mourning.

"Sorry about that, Sora," the golden phoenix said, and then opened her mouth and turned to her opponent. "Crimson Flare!"

An enormous, purifying cone of flame shot towards Deathmon and the surrounding eggs, eliciting an audible gasp horror from Elecmon as it engulfed them along with its short, gray target. But when the flames faded from view, the eggs were unharmed, while the last remnants of the village's assailant vanished into a stream of data.

Hououmon had used up most of her energy in the battle, and for a moment, Sora feared for her partner as she began to again change shape. But when the light vanished, Hououmon became not a ball of feathers, or scattered bits of information - but Pyocomon, like Garudamon always had. Like Hououmon always should have.

Takenouchi Sora embraced her resurrected partner tightly from the moment she returned to her smaller form, and cried seemingly endless tears of happiness and relief. Not until the chosen children had left the digital world and returned to their respective homes would she let go of Pyocomon – who fully understood, and would have done likewise had she wings in her present form.

"I'm so happy that I don't have to leave you again," Pyocomon said, and all Sora could do in response was smile.


End file.
